“Oh?”
“As you know we are now in the process of carrying out Operation Polly, the evacuation of nonessential British from Palestine.”
“I’ve heard it referred to as Operation Folly,” Sutherland said.
Freddie smiled politely at the jibe and cleared his throat. “General Haven-Hurst wanted to know what you planned to do.”
“I don’t plan to do a thing. This is my home and this is where I am going to remain.”
Freddie’s fingers drummed impatiently on the table top. “What I mean, sir, is that General Haven-Hurst wants it understood that once the nonessentials are gone he cannot
assume responsibility for your safety If you remain here it could pose a problem to us.”
Caldwell’s speech held obvious devious connotations: Haven-Hurst knew of Sutherland’s leanings and was afraid of his working with the Haganah. He was, in effect, advising him to get out.
“Tell General Haven-Hurst I am grateful for his concern and I fully realize his exact position.”
Freddie wanted to press the matter. Sutherland arose quickly and thanked Caldwell for the visit and walked him to the driveway, where a sergeant waited with a staff car. He watched the car drive down toward the Taggart fort. As usual, Freddie had botched his assignment. His delivery of Haven-Hurst’s warning had been clumsy, indeed.
Sutherland walked back to the villa and thought it over. He was in physical danger. The Maccabees could easily take exception to a retired British brigadier with Arab friends living alone on Mount Canaan, although the Maccabees would certainly think twice about doing him in. There was no danger from the Haganah. He had a loose contact with them and they were not only discriminate but did not go in for assassination. On the other side there was no telling what Husseini was likely to do: Sutherland had friends among the Jews. Some of them could well have been Maccabees unbeknownst to him.
Bruce Sutherland walked to his gardens. They were bursting with the early spring roses. He looked beyond the valley to Safed. He had found peace and comfort here. The hideous dreams were gone. No, he would not leave tomorrow-or ever.
Caldwell’s car entered the Taggart fort a few moments after he left Sutherland. The four outside walls held the offices and barracks. The inner court served as the assembly ground and parking lot for vehicles. He was met and asked to report to CID.
“Are you going back to Jerusalem tonight, Major Caldwell?” the Criminal Investigation Division inspector asked.
Freddie looked at his watch. “Yes, I plan to. We can make it back before evening if I leave right now.”
“Good. I have a Jew here I want taken back to CID in Jerusalem for questioning. Maccabee prisoner … dangerous one. There is a chance that the Maccabees know we are holding him here and will be watching for a convoy to transfer him. That is why it will be safer if he goes in your car.”
“Happy to do it.”
“Bring the Jew boy in.”
Two soldiers dragged in a boy of fourteen or fifteen years of age manacled with heavy chains on hands and feet. A taped gag was over his mouth. His face was bruised from a CID third degree. The inspector walked up to the prisoner. “Don’t let Ben Solomon’s angel face fool you. He’s a ruddy little bastard.”
“Ben Solomon? Ben Solomon? I don’t remember seeing his name.”
“Just got him last night. Raid on the Safed police station. They were trying to steal arms. He killed two policemen with a grenade. Yes, indeed, you’re a mean little sheeny, aren’t you?”
Ben Solomon stood calm with his eyes blazing contempt at the inspector.
“Don’t take his gag off, Major Caldwell, or he’ll start singing Psalms for you. He’s a fanatic little bastard.”
The inspector became annoyed at the boy’s steady withering glare. He took a step toward Ben Solomon and smashed him in the mouth, sending him crashing to the floor, bloody and tangled in his chains.
“Get him out of here,” the inspector snapped in a nervous voice.
The boy was shoved on the floor in the back of the car. One armed soldier sat in back with him and Caldwell sat in front next to the driver. They drove out of the Taggart fort.
“Dirty little bastard,” the driver mumbled. “Ask me, Major Caldwell, they ought to turn us loose on these Jews ‘ere a few weeks. That’s what we should do, by rights.”
“Cobber of mine got it last week,” the guard in the back said, “and a fine bloke he was, too. ‘Ad a wife and a new baby. Them Maccabees give it to him right through the ‘ead, they did.”
As they drove into the Beth Shean Valley the three men relaxed; they were now in all-Arab territory and the danger of attack was gone until they reached the Jerusalem area.
Caldwell turned around and looked at the prisoner on the floor. The juices of hatred churned in his stomach. He detested Bruce Sutherland. He knew in his heart that Sutherland was helping the Haganah. Sutherland was a Jew lover. Sutherland had intentionally let the catastrophe on Cyprus occur.
Caldwell remembered standing near the barbed wire at the Caraolos camp and a fat Jewish woman spitting out on him.
He looked back at the boy on the floor. The guard sat in the middle of the seat. One heavy boot was planted on Ben Solomon’s head and he snickered with amusement.
“Dirty Jew!” Caldwell mumbled under his breath.
He could see a parade of them. The bearded characters in London’s Whitechapel and he could smell the smell of pickles.
The line of pawn shops-they sat hunched over their benches mumbling prayers. Caldwell could see the little boys on their way to Jew school with the black caps on their heads.
They drove toward the all-Arab city of Nablus.
Caldwell smiled as he remembered the officers’ club and the sheeny jokes. He could see his mother leading him into the office of an arrogant Jew doctor.
And they think Hitler was wrong, Caldwell thought. Hitler knew what the score was. It was bloody well too bad that the war ended before he could do them all in. Caldwell remembered entering Bergen-Belsen with Sutherland. Sutherland was sick at what he saw. Well, Caldwell wasn’t sick. The more Jews dead, the better.
They passed into an Arab village with a record of known hostility toward the Yishuv. It was an Husseini strong point.
“Stop the car,” Caldwell ordered. “Now you two men listen to me. We are throwing this kike out.”
“But, Major, they’ll murder him,” the guard said.
“I admits I’m put out at the Jews, sir,” the driver said, “but we got a responsibility to deliver our prisoner, we has.”
“Shut up!” Caldwell barked, half hysterically. “I said we are throwing him out. Both of you are to swear he was taken by Maccabees who roadblocked us. If you open your mouth otherwise you’ll end up in ditches. Am I clear?”
The two soldiers merely nodded as they saw the mad look in Caldwell’s eyes.
Ben Solomon was unchained from the floor. The car slowed near the coffeehouse. The boy was hurled into the street and they sped away for Jerusalem.
It worked just as Caldwell knew it would. Within an hour Ben Solomon had been killed and mutilated. He was decapitated. The bodyless head was held up by the hair and photographed with twenty laughing Arabs around it. The picture was sent out as a warning of what was going to happen to all the Jews sooner or later.
Major Fred Caldwell made a disastrous mistake. One of the Arabs in the coffeehouse who saw the boy thrown from the car was a member of the Maccabees.
General Sir Arnold Haven-Hurst, KBE, CB, DSO, MC was infuriated. He paced the office of his headquarters in the Schneller compound in Jerusalem, then snatched Cecil Bradshaw’s letter from his desk and read it again.
The situation has degenerated to such a state that unless means can be recommended for immediate stabilization by you I will be compelled to suggest the matter be turned over to the United Nations.